Hal Cooper, who directed the Arkansas Tech University band for 32 years, will be acknowledged for his accomplishments next Saturday when he is inducted into the Arkansas Band Directors Hall of Fame. (FOR THE COURIER / Steve Newby)

For Hal Cooper, who directed the Arkansas Tech University band for 32 years, the joy of band directing was in the product.

“Conducting is a process of compiling a program, and then taking care of the technical aspects of it, to the point where you can move into the art of it and create something that will communicate with people,” he said.

“And then have it come off where everybody in the ensemble, including the conductor, gets cold shivers.”

Cooper will be acknowledged next Saturday for the numerous products he created in his four decades of directing throughout schools in the state, when he will be inducted into the Arkansas Band Directors Hall of Fame.

“How can you imagine a better honor than to get recognition from your peers?” Cooper said. “I have been blessed with other recognitions, but they sort of all pale compared to this.”

But Cooper is hesitant to take all the credit for the band program’s success.

He learned early in his career just how much of a team effort band directing is — and throughout his career, he’s had good teams.

“Nobody gets anywhere by themselves. It’s always a person who helped here and a person who helped there,” he said.

“The applied faculty there, Ken and Karen Futterer, they’ve been there almost as long as I have. And to have that kind of stability, with them and Gary Barrow and Phil Parker, I mean, you talk about an advantage.”

“But that’s the way Arkansas Tech is,” he added.

“As far as full-time band directors are concerned, it’s just a very stable musical environment.”

That stability, along with a student-oriented approach to teaching music, resulted in one of the most successful music programs in the state — one that has churned out band directors who have made their names both locally and regionally.

“On one side of the coin, you have the potential to be 100 percent performing. On the other side of the coin, you’re doing nothing but training educators. It’s a didactic approach, if you want to call it that,” he said.

“Somewhere in the middle, is the place where you can accomplish both. So I think philosophically, people believe in our approach to teaching music and teaching music education,” he continued. “And they send their best kids there, and those best kids come into a program that’s going to give them what they need. It feeds itself.”

The induction will take place at 2 p.m. next Saturday at the Hot Springs Convention Center.

When Cooper steps on stage for his induction, they will reward what he has worked toward for more than 40 years.

They will reward the product of his career, a career which took students and turned them into band directors, musicians and music lovers.